Ryze

I have Rock Band 3 on my 360, and I never bothered moving into the next gen. Too busy, and the peripheral nonsense - with wheels especially, made the decision for me.

Next is my gaming news source. I love this site, but it's a patchwork quilt, and the advert nonsense last month or whenever, made me decide to subscribe to GamesTM again after 10 years. It's not as though there was much alternative choice here at EG.

So - I'm old skool. I'll see how this place is for breaking news stories, but I'm happy to stay old skool, and continue with Rock Band 3 and GamesTM.

Hopefully every high-end game will now have at least a very playable and polished VR mission - that plays out like a SEGA Arcade game - like a vertical slice of non-stop fun and variety.

They don't need hours-long grinding slogs in the headset - those will appear organically when the time and the experience suits them. For now - it would be great to see the top end games have optional VR sections, areas and missions.

Mass Effect
Skyrim
Transformers / Platinum
Titanfall
Battlefield

Sports & driving games

etc.

The main game obviously won't necessarily work in VR, BUT online spectator modes in FIFA and other games like Battlefield, for example?

Support roles in these games, which perhaps involve taking a gun without driving a vehicle (or vice versa), or some other reconnaissance or strategy role?

There are probably tonnes of experiences that would work, and if a few studios prove to be adept at these, they could become the go to development houses - like Bluepoint and others for HD / PS4 conversions.

There ABSOLUTELY should be an Xbox One+ out around the same time as the NX.

Microsoft can mandate that all games must run on all consoles. Obviously they would be developed with the installed base in mind, as there are 20 million consoles out there, so that's a given.

The X1+ would have faster memory, CPU, HDMI 2.0, faster BDXL drive and 4K Blu-ray support, and obviously more ESRAM in a significantly higher spec GPU.

The regular console would still be sold with a 500GB drive, but this new machine would replace the Elite, and come with a huge SSHD. Hopefully games could be released on BDs that have 2 layers that the Xbox One can read, and an additional one or two that the BDXL drive in the X1+ could access, reducing the stupidly large day one patches that Master Chief collection had, for example.

360 games would suddenly run significantly better as well. It's win-win, as it'd be a massive shot in the arm for X1, leapfrogging the competition and giving a huge boost to the customer base as more people come on board.

Just seeing the existing games get 1080p/60 patches for the X1+ console, would be a wonderful sight.

I really don't know what they're waiting for. They shouldn't talk about it, they should just insta-release it at E3, and they'd kick everyone's arses with the hardcore base as people begin to upgrade, and kill the NX's 3rd party chances at the same time.

This really should be an expensive, high-end version of the system. The AMD equivalent of an nVidia 970 or better, on the GPU side.

Non-too shabby, really, despite the dross that was also released. Still - it was their LOWEST point, hardware-wise - an utter failure.

The Dreamcast was utterly beautiful in 2000. I wouldn't touch it. Wouldn't spend any money or have any faith. Didn't trust them.

Looks a lot like what's happened with the Wii U.

A lot of people had faith in Nintendo with the Wii, and spent a LOT of money during the launch period. Think back to how much a Wii + multiple controllers / nunchucks / pro pads / gamecube pads / wii motion plus, Wii Fit, plus full priced games, cost. VERY expensive back in 2006-2008.

Nintendo just took that money, turned their backs on their most loyal customers, and sat on it.

Many of those customers aren't 'fanatics', they just want quality entertainment as opposed to endless droughts. They walked away to the competition, who are selling content to them on a daily, weekly and monthly basis.

TBH, I'm not especially engaged in playing games from the past 12 months, and I'm more looking forward to seeing where things are in 12-24 months, and looking back on things as they develop.

I also want to see some nice evolution in games design. Looking at games like Doom and Quake, then Half-life, Unreal Tourney, Halo, Call of Duty and Battlefield - there's a clear evolution - and it took many years, especially to get things working well on the consoles.

(Turbo Esprit,) GTA, (Driver, Midtown Madness, Crazy Taxi,) GTA III, GTA IV - more evolution. I always despised the on foot controls in Vice City, but the rest of the game carried it. It's better now, but there's still room for more to happen while on foot, other than fighting and shooting, I reckon.

I'd like to see something nice and new, and it'll take a few years for the industry to adapt to where we are right now - which is basically the hardcore 1080p PS4/X1/PC era, with casual stuff on iPad/iPhone/Android & PC. Then there's the brand new potential of VR, that'll probably only make a significant mainstream impact in 2-5 years time. It'll be great to see the innovators at work, however, as all of the best PC games will benefit from VR capable versions or mods as the retail hardware is eventually developed and announced.

The Xbox One is now the baseline spec for any new games being designed, while top PC games can demand 4GB+ of RAM in the coming years. This makes a difference that games released up to now simply could not take advantage of in terms of their design.

It'll take one or two games - like Shadow of Mordor and others to surprise us with new features that take advantage of the new toybox of features available, in different ways. Shadow of the Colossus was another of these games. These innovations likely wont take place in the biggest sequels, as they wont want to break their cash cows.

It's going to take a few years before I find what I'm after, but I'm too busy at the moment to game much anyway.

In order for them to 'come across as more confident', they need to make good, gamer-focussed decisions in the first place.

They were very adamant about their choices one year ago.

Check the interviews on Game Trailers where Don Mattrick and Phil Harrison are quite confident that Kinect is an integral part of the console experience, and that an Internet connection is vital for Xbox One. That if you don't have a constant Internet connection, then you should stick with Xbox 360.

Idiots making idiotic decisions in order to push a non gamer-focussed agenda.

Really there should be a seriously high-bandwidth expansion port with power connection on the back of the Xbox One, and a tiny, drive-less version of the 360 should have been released instead of last year's model, that can run download games on its own, or plug into the back of the X1 to give it 100% backwards compatibility.

THAT would have been cause for celebration amongst gamers, and THAT would have kept pretty much all of their customers on side.

Meaning that the app, Kinect and XBL social services can remain active even when you're watching TV, and that a Sky and / or Virgin app could potentially communicate with the box to change channels etc using Kinect gestures. There's already a Sky+ app for Android that enables swipe-based channel changing over LAN.

Means that you could, for example remain available for Skype calls while there's somebody present in the living room, and 'away' when there's nobody around to take the call. I guess it could work with Smartglass to push the caller's video to a second screen. Maybe it'll just work seamlessly with the Skype app, taking video from Kinect, and routing the caller's video to a tablet or Smartphone.

NOT necessarily looking like games will require a continual Internet connection to function - BUT perhaps we can play INSTALLED games without the disc if we have a connection to carry out an occasional online check, to ensure the disc has not been installed and used elsewhere. If it has, then the disc is required to authenticate and play. Sounds SMART.

Being able to start a party or request an online game while still watching TV isn't a terrible thing.

Hopefully they wont forget about the GAMES, as I'll not be rushing out to buy a £400 mediabox companion that plays COD & FIFA.

- Snap up any stragglers from Sony Liverpool & Bizarre creations, and make a new studio, also make or purchase a Japan-based studio and get busy with a new PGR game or completely revamped WipEout competitor

First party XBLA games ported across and ready for day one download. 3rd parties encouraged to port XBLA titles across using incentives. Re-think of indie games service - all XBLA and Indie games could be released on the Windows 8 Xbox app store simultaneously, with progress synced automatically and mobile options available.

Also, connecting a cheap, tiny, mini barebones cut-down Xbox 360 module with not much more than the CPU & GPU COULD be an ideal optional BC device, avoiding bumping up the cost of the console or porting anything over to x86 / Jaguar. This COULD plug into the back of the Xbox via an edge connector or possibly eSata or USB3, and might be the rumoured Xbox Loop device with no optical drive.

It could probably therefore be shrunk to the size of a new mac mini or even smaller. Maybe Apple TV sized plus space for active cooling. It'd be special if they could stuff the old nVidia chip in here to bring full Xbox compatibility as well, if that's even needed at this stage.

If by any chance this becomes Xbox 'Infinity' brand, then hopefully they can release a more powerful, compatible model in a couple of years to leapfrog the competition and offer 1080p/60 or better for more games as the tech gets cheaper, smaller and cooler.

This sort of thing will sell it to gamers. Microsoft have been SILENT other than Forza Horizon on 1st party games on the whole for the past couple of years apart from Kinect bollocks, so it'd be foolish to expect much other than a TONNE of stuff in development behind the scenes for this launch.

If not, then the PS4 with 8GB RAM is looking enticing for a 2014-15 purchase for me. Eventually - depending on price and games.

Hopefully they wont do a Windows 8 and cock it up.

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DLC / value comment:
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It simply doesn't cut it that people who have paid the full day one retail price for a game can't get all of the content, or at least the main, on-disc, prepared content, bundled via a code. Even if it's time-delayed and only released several months down the line (to 'keep the disc in the tray'), there should be several of the main pieces of DLC bundled with the pre-ordered, full price copy of the game. Those who get a discounted copy later, or a pre-owned copy, should have to pay up.

So currently, if I wait for a year (or often less), then I can get the game for £15 with all of the DLC included! What!?!?! Incentive much?!?

That's a broken system that encourages people to either TRADE (to recover some of the £40 in disgust at being asked to pay more to play the rest of the game), or NOT BUY (until the rest of the content appears, and the price drops).

They're basically depending on hype instead of value to sell their product at full price.

Broken - especially when we look at how games and developers get their 'funding' to develop content vs. the Movie industry.

IMHO.

SOLUTIONS:

- Use Sony's DLC gold pass system, allowing SOME free DLC handouts to those who redeem the code within x days of the release. Not draconian, and encourages new purchases.

- Make them GOLD in colour, and attractive, in order that people selling the game will retain them to hold onto the value.

- Make them collectors cards, like Baseball and Football cards. Top Trumps.

- Create a loyalty scheme, where people who hold these cards, expired/redeemed or not, can use them to obtain exclusive rewards

- Move towards an NFC or barcode/QR-code-like system for redeeming the passes, and away from typing in long strings of text using a control pad, if possible

Most people aren't taking into account that the next consoles will need to have monster GPUs to render 1080p/60 3D. If Sony / Microsoft aim for this, then there'll be little chance of them taking a 'Wii-like' technology sidestep to save costs.

3D works best when v-sync'd, so this BODES VERY WELL for 2D framerates and elimination / minimising of tearing in the next gen, for those who DON'T upgrade their TV sets.

It'll be near impossible to create a game that simply doesn't work for those without 3D displays, so calm the nonsensical hate, children. Even larger 2D panels will get cheaper, so it's a win/win.

+ The next big AAA multi format games that have a simultaneous release on Wii U, once the installed base reaches 2-3 million+

+ The first few big AAA games that are written from the ground up for Wii U, with no time compromises - such as Killzone 2 on PS3, Gears 2 on 360, HazeLOL on PS3, aaaaand UNCHARTED 2/3 on PS3 - ESPECIALLY.

In addition, I can't wait to see when Nintendo drop the following clangers this gen: